Neon Lights and City Sights
by Allekha
Summary: Sometimes Nate stopped and thought too much about the city before the War, and all Nick could do was wait the moments out.


A/N: Written for tuesday for Trick or Treat 2016; November hit like a hurricane and I forgot to crosspost when authors were revealed.

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When Nate first stumbled into Diamond City, he had the distant-eyed look of someone who'd been through too much, and it hadn't abated a bit in the months that Nick had known him. The war, the bombs, his wife's death, his son's kidnapping, everything the wasteland had to offer – for his own good he probably should have holed up in a hunting shack somewhere to take a break from the world. Instead, he got right up again, started establishing settlements with the Minutemen and helping little girls find their cats.

Nate was a good guy, but there were moments when he seemed to drown in that past, and they were unpredictable. Once, they had passed a woman hyped out on way too much Day Tripper, sobbing as she banged on the side of a Port-A-Diner and hit the button over and over again. Nate simply stopped and stared, so it had been up to Nick to try and calm the woman down before she either gave herself a stroke or alerted every monster in the city to her location.

Nate rarely talked about whatever it was that came to mind in those moments, but there were exceptions. Like the time they had needed to take Ellie along to help solve a case. Nick had been reluctant to let her come with them, though at least she had been safely far away and operating a radio to warn them about Raider movements, and everything had gone swimmingly with her aid.

"Good old Diamond City," Ellie sighed as the three of them entered the old stadium. The haphazard lights stirred something deep in Nick's artificial heart – a sense of home, he supposed.

"It's not really a city," Nate murmured.

"Yeah?"

"It's too small."

"It's the biggest settlement 'til you hit the Capital Wasteland."

"This many people lived in my neighborhood," said Nate. "We chose it because it was small." He had paused at the top of the ramp, staring across the stadium rather than into it.

"Nate's right," Nick said, hoping to distract her until Nate was back to normal. "This place is a downright village compared to the pre-War days. 'course, they had their own problems – trash and pollution, theft and murder like you wouldn't believe... and here you get to know everyone, for better or for worse. Cities were always full of strangers."

"Right. Well, you two can sit here and reminisce. I'm going to go ahead of you and make dinner. Make sure you bring Nate around when you're done, I'll make a portion for him too."

"Thanks," he said, because Nate wasn't going to.

While he waited for Nate to come back to the present, he leaned against the railing and fiddled with his metal hand, keeping one eye on Nate. At this time of night, there was no-one to bother them, and the passing security guard barely mumbled a good-evening.

He also thought about the old Boston, since the topic had been brought up, but for all of the old Nick's memories rattling around in his skull, there was one crucial difference between him and Nate that he was pretty sure was the root cause of these moments:

He was a synth, and so the memories were just as fresh as they had been when he woke up in the first place, save the odd flipped bit in his hard drive. They were drowned out now by his own memories in the wasteland, but they weren't any more blurred than before.

Nate, though – the more time he spent out here, the farther away those things he had known would become. His wife's face, his son, his family and friends and the bright bustle of the undamaged cities. Given twenty years, he would probably barely remember them except for the most vivid details and the vaguest outlines.

Nate eventually sighed and dropped his head, rubbed his face with his hand. "Sorry," he said. "Were you waiting?"

"Not really," Nick said as he pushed himself off the railing, though it had been quite a few minutes now. "I was thinking about the old place myself. Anything in particular you miss?"

"The lights made me think of last Christmas. My family came up and Nora and I went around with them, looking at all the Christmas lights. She really loved them." A pause, and then he turned to Nick. "You know, thank God for you and Codsworth. I don't know what I'd do if nobody else knew what I was talking about. Sometimes I feel like I'm going out my mind when people don't know something as simple as the rules of baseball. Like the past was all some big hallucination I cooked up."

"If you ever need more proof that it really all happened, feel free to ask. Now, Ellie said something about dinner, let's not keep her waiting."

With one last look at the Diamond City lights, Nate ducked his head, hefted his overstuffed bag, and followed Nick down to the Agency.


End file.
